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Nephilim
Nephilim “I have the tome you seek, it is true. Behold, the Seven-Fold Canabulum of Vritu the Damned! No, do not open it- the curse upon this book would strip the very breath from your lungs. Luckily, I have no such...inconvenience to overcome. I will transcribe the passages you seek, provided you can pay my price. If not...my library is always in need of fresh guardians, mortal.” - Arash al’Rasul, Nephilim loremaster, to a petitioner The tale of the fall of the Empire of Neph is a bitter one, and has been told and retold over the millennia as a stark example of the perils of reaching too high. In the ancient past, the mighty Neph empire ruled all of Estia. For a thousand years and more the Neph, a race of ancient humans possessed of near godlike arcane might, built great cities with golden domed temples to the Dragon Gods. With the blessing of the Dragons, they cultivated the land, brought all other peoples to heel under their rule and built great libraries and aetheniums as repositories of their knowledge, that all future generations would share their bounty. They ruled a society that was as a mortal paradise. But it was not enough. The last ruler of the Empire of the Neph was the sorcerer queen - Nephteri the Undying - who unlocked the secret of immortality and doomed her Empire. She set out on to find the source of immortality, it is said, because she was dissatisfied that her people felt they had reached the apex of civilization and wisdom, yet was their not yet sickness and death? Did these sorrows not persist, try as they might to dispel their spectres? For years she studied in dire repositories of arcane knowledge, engaging in experiments both dark and strange. Finally, after years of errors, she found the answer: through a combination of alchemy, arcane magic and ingenious clockwork devices implanted directly into the flesh of the body, she discovered she could make one immune to the ravages of time, preserved in eternal youth and glory forevermore. Now, truly, the Neph had achieved the pinnacle of civilization. Yet now without any need to concern themselves with expansion, gathering power or indeed even survival, the nobility of Neph set themselves to a new goal: obtaining godhood itself. They wished to meet their deities as equals, and join them as masters of the world, a divine caste of living gods. The Dragons were enraged that the mortal Neph and their queen would dare to intrude into the realm of the divine and seek to snatch power for themselves. For their presumption, the Dragon Gods destroyed the Empire in a single day. Fire rained from the heavens, turning fields and plains to ashen wastes, earthquakes and tornadoes tore grand towers to pieces as tidal waves washed entire cities into the ocean. Monstrous champions and armies of genies smashed the Neph golems and constructs, driving their mortal forces from the field in sheer terror. For all the suffering the Dragon Gods heaped upon the Empire, their punishment of the Neph nobility was more terrible still: those who had made themselves immortals had their life essence ripped away, but their augmented bodies lived on, their souls intact. Tiny golden clockworks turned, forcing withered lungs to expand, pushing alchemical solutions through veins that held nothing but dust. Still able to feel their dead bodies and hear the terrible silence where there was once a heartbeat, no longer among the living but not yet truly dead, the Neph nobility found themselves trapped on the knifepoint of mortality - their souls longing to flee their husks, but unable to escape. The fortunate sank into a deep coma-like slumber, minds unwilling or unable to cope with the curse laid upon them. Surrounded by ashes and dust, they welcomed oblivion. Those of stronger will fought the horror of their new forms, many going mad and destroying themselves to escape an eternity of half-life, while others tried vainly to undo the curse that had been laid upon them. At every turn their arcane power failed them, and their attempts only created more abominations and monstrosities, which they turned loose in impatient rage, letting their warped creations destroy what little remained of their kingdom with their thrashing and death throes, while their creators toiled to undo the will of gods. In the space of mere weeks the greatest civilization Estia had ever known was replaced with an ash and mud-choked landscape of storms, wildfires and shattered cities, filled with howling monsters and the bodies of the dead. Those that survived the cataclysm declared the former heart of the empire, the southern coast of Estia, an accursed place and vowed never to return or repeat their leaders’ mistakes. Slowly, the blasted earth of the ruined empire gave way to desert. Sand erased the engraved stone histories of the Neph cities and swallowed up their ruins. Looters and bandits, undeterred by stories of monsters or ghosts, pillaged what they could, picking clean the corpse of the Empire. Time rolled on, and generations grew up without ever hearing the name of Nephteri the Damned. History, it seemed, had forgotten the Empire of Neph. For seven thousand years the Neph nobility slumbered in crypts and tombs lost beneath ruined cities; swallowed up by the arid desert that was once their homeland, drifting in a long and troubled sleep. Some 900 years before the current era the strongest-willed nobles, those whose minds had struggled longest to resist the dark call of eternal slumber and the horror of their curse, began to awaken in their ancient keeps and buried tombs. When they made their way to the surface, they found that the world had left their kingdom behind long ago, and that only the most studied of loremasters even remembered their existence. Rather than allow themselves to be lost to the past, the newly awakened nobles vowed to restore their countrymen and seek vengeance against the gods who had betrayed them. They began seeking out the buried resting places of their former peers and awakening those they found. The reawakened nobles dubbed themselves the Nephilim in memory of their former home, and vowed to follow the first of their kind to awaken, whom they dubbed the Elohim. Led by the merciless Elohim, the remnants of the once-great Neph Empire set out upon a quest that drives them still: the accrual of power, by any means necessary, that they may someday remove the curse and challenge the Dragon Gods who damned them. Today, the Nephilim continue to strive for mystical power sufficient to allow them to challenge the Dragon Gods, and they have not been entirely unsuccessful: by delving into the ancient ruins of their former kingdom, they have recovered much lore long thought lost, and with only a small fragment of their former knowledge of alchemy, enchantment and summoning magic, the Nephilim have become a force to be reckoned with in southern Estia, and the royal courts of the allied kingdoms hum with the rumor that the ancient Elohim sorcerer-lords have discovered the means to confront the Dragon Gods in their own domains, and will soon be ready to see their millennia-old vendetta fulfilled. What will happen then, none can say, but the Nephilim have been patient, and have suffered much to have their revenge. Should they have the opportunity to strike back against the Dragon Gods, it is certain that the Nephilim will show no more mercy than was shown them. Physical Description The Nephilim are extremely unnerving to look upon, and take great pains to cover their ghastly forms, both to avoid upsetting squeamish outsiders and to hide the shame of their decrepit forms. Their skin is ashen and monochromatic, ranging from bone white to a dusky gray, and they lack any form of hair, head or body. Most Nephilim have suffered the wear of ages, and have exposed bone showing through bloodless rents in their pallid flesh, skull-like faces covered by parchment-thin skin, or worse. Yet perhaps most striking is their lack of true eyes: their eye sockets are empty hollows, but are lit from within by an eerie green glow that resembles a tiny dancing emerald flame, a side effect of the strange alchemical solutions invigorating their ancient bodies. Nephilim often wear alabaster or porcelain masks to hide their withered features from the truly living, as much out of shame as a desire to avoid unnecessary complications with overzealous paladins. The other most notable feature of their physical appearance are the mysterious alchemical mechanisms embedded in their flesh. Every Nephilim boasts several arcane-looking devices implanted directly into his or her body to force his withered frame to cling to life. These golden devices take many forms, usually sculpted to resemble winged scarabs, sun discs, ankhs and other motifs of life and rebirth, and all incorporate many tiny gears and pistons. Despite their apparent value, the alchemical solutions coursing through these wondrous devices cause them to corrode into uselessness if removed from the body for more than a few minutes, thwarting ambitious and foolhardy thieves (assuming they can survive the ire of their would-be victim). As former lords and sovereign rulers, the Nephilim are possessed of a fearsome majesty, and prefer to dress according to their self-perceived station, preferring the lavish garb of an aristocrat to the stained leathers of a veteran adventurer. Obsessed with the forces of time, life and death as they are, many Nephilim incorporate funerary themes into their clothing, preferring dark, somber colors and mortuary motifs. Society The reclusive and suspicious Nephilim are clannish in the extreme, and rarely deign to treat with outsiders in any number. Thanks to their ghoulish appearance and haughty demeanor, not to mention the intense hostility of the terrain of the Tahkhet Desert, their lands are shunned by most non-Nephilim. Travelers speak in hushed whispers of entire caravans vanishing in the golden sands, spirited away to the oubliettes of the Nephilim for unspeakable experiments. Whether or not this is true, it is well known that adventurers exploring the ancient ruins of the Tahkhet Desert will sometimes come across what they believe to be an intact tomb, only to discover it is the private laboratory and home to a powerful and extremely inhospitable Nephilim lord. Such buried halls are, in fact, the chief meeting place of the entire “race”. Each Nephilim was once a great noble, and was entombed in vast stone chambers beneath what were once their ancestral holdings, among his or her ancestors’ venerated remains. The palaces above have been swept away by the millennia, but their tombs and vaults remain intact, a testament to their builders’ puissant craftsmanship. Many Nephilim convert these tombs into their new lairs, building laboratories and libraries amongst the bones of their ancestors. Those whose holdings were destroyed in the cataclysm or do not wish to disturb the remains of their ancestors seek out Hashut, the great necropolis-city ruled by the Elohim. Here they must swear allegiance to one of the rulers of the city, but in exchange for their service as a vassal they are given titles and a domain attached to the city by a Witch Portal, allowing them regular access to the city's many markets and libraries. While many mutter behind closed doors of the black arts practiced in Hashut, particularly necromancy and demonology, it is a rare soul courageous enough to condemn the Nephilim for their studies where they can hear. Those that dare criticize the Nephilim to their faces on these practices are met with contemptuous dismissal, for to the scions of Hashut, there is no sin in delving into such forbidden matters. Indeed, the only sin they recognize is to let power slip through one’s grasp for a less scrupulous rival to claim it. This is perhaps the most relevant facet of Nephilim culture as it pertains to the rest of the world: their single-minded pursuit of power, by any means. In the name of their quest for vengeance, any action is permissible in their eyes, provided it brings one a step closer to divine apotheosis. A Nephilim will ally with any whom he deems trustworthy and able to profitably assist him in his own machinations, and will abandon such comrades as soon as they are no longer of any use. Thanks to this, combined with the Nephilims’ respect for those who also seek knowledge for their own gain, they are surprisingly welcoming to outsiders who come seeking their wisdom or their magical prowess, provided those outsiders have something to offer in return. Many such an arrangement turns sour, however, when the guest fails to show the proper respect, or is discovered to possess a trinket or tome their host desires. Their host’s regal facade may then fall, revealing the cold and calculating intellect behind it, not to mention his cadre of reanimated or crafted guardians. Relations The Nephilim are largely shunned by the civilized races, treated as more myth than fact by the average citizen of Estia. Those Nephilim who travel abroad have learned to hide their forms beneath masks, veils and long robes, lest they be mistaken for a victim of a plague, or worse yet a rampaging undead monster. More than one hysterical mob has torn apart a Nephilim traveler they have mistaken for an undead abomination, and as a result, those who travel outside of the Tahkhet tend to keep a low profile while abroad. In their own homeland however, they play host to all manner of knowledge seekers and explorers, for it is said that any secret of alchemy, necromancy, enchanting or demonology may be bought in the funerary halls of Tahkhet’s fallen rulers...for a price. Amongst their own and in the presence of the rare accepted outsiders, Nephilim are cordial yet aloof hosts, wrapping their ruined forms in a regal hauteur. As former rulers and nobles, they yet cling to their ancient stations, affecting titles, manners of speech and dignity suitable to great lords of their long-lost kingdom. To address a Nephilim with less than the respect he or she feels is their due is a sure way to raise their ire. Those that call on them and hope to leave again come bearing honor gifts and lore or relics to offer in trade. The one rather unusual exception is that goblin caravans are always welcome in all but the most xenophobic of noble’s lands. Nobody knows the reason for this exception to their otherwise standoffish relations with the world, but it is believed that the Nephilim seek some knowledge or relics from beyond their own lands that they hope to acquire from their goblin contacts. Many kins tell stories of being paid a king’s ransom by one of the Nephilim for a seemingly worthless trinket or bauble, a stained map or an illegible tome, but none can claim to know what their client hoped to learn from it. The ever pragmatic goblins ask as few questions as possible, both because they too have heard the stories of what happens to the curious in Tahkhet, and because in their reasoning, it’s better not to know anyway. Alignment and Religion In terms of alignment, the Nephilim span the spectrum, and are as varied as the humans they were in ages past. Some are honorable and righteous, adhering to ancient codes of conduct and courtly behavior in stark contrast with their ruined visages. Others are callous manipulators, using temporary allies and discarding them as they become inconvenient or tiresome. Few Nephilim can truly be described as “good”, however, and the majority adhere to a grim neutrality, seeing themselves as standing apart from conventional debates of good and evil in their quest for vengeance. Few races despise the gods as the Nephilim do, yet this does not seem to preclude them from divine magic. Indeed, the Nephilim crave divine power even more than arcane power, for they see in divine magic the beginnings of the road to godhood. Nevertheless, Nephilim clerics are rare, and those few universally venerate broad ideals rather than specific deities. In terms of the deities of Estia, the Nephilim as a race have little use for them. Above and beyond their hatred of the Dragon Gods, they view the Andran pantheon as a meaningless distraction at worst and a source of power to be studied and exploited at best. Typhon and his cult are viewed with healthy wariness, for while Typhon was able to overcome the strength of the Dragon Gods through deception if not pure power, the Lord of Madness is unpredictable to say the least, and his cults even more so. Adventures Many Nephilim find themselves paupers with only a sand-choked crypt to their names upon being awakened from the Long Sleep by their peers, having had any ancestral wealth long since ruined by the weight of ages or stolen away by centuries-dead tomb robbers. Most make alliances with secure and powerful fellow Nephilim, or swear themselves to the service of one of the venerated Elohim, but a healthy minority simply strike out into the world, bending their considerable wills to rebuilding their former wealth and prestige. Along with such ambitious neophytes, more advanced and powerful Nephilim will also set out to hunt down a specific relic of scrap of lore that cannot be gained by more conventional means, or to seek the solution to a larger, more abstract puzzle. Some few even travel simply to learn more of the world that has grown up around them during their long slumber, either out of simple curiosity or perhaps to survey what they aim to one day reclaim as part of their empire. Nephilim Racial Traits +2 Intelligence, +2 Charisma, -2 Constitution: Nephilim have keen minds and forceful wills, but exist with one foot in the grave. Medium Size: Nephilim are Medium creatures and have no bonuses or penalties due to their size. Normal Speed: Nephilim have a base speed of 30 feet. Darkvision: The Nephilims’ unnatural sight grants them darkvision out to 120’ and a +2 racial bonus on Intimidate checks against targets that can see their eyes. Negative Energy Affinity: As the Universal Monster Rule Languages: Nephilim begin play speaking Common and Erishtu. Nephilim with high intelligence scores may choose from the following bonus languages: Celestial, Draconic, Elven, Giant, Infernal.